Language in the Workplace. Interactions and Miscommunication

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. The Interactions
2.1 Complains and whinges
2.2 Directives
2.3. Commissives
2.4. Apologies
2.5. Small-Talk

3. Miscommunication

4. Closing Remarks

References

1. Introduction

In our multi-lingual world language plays an important role in creating a particular kind of working atmosphere. Especially the workplace combines the talents of many people with different traditions, habits, ideas, cultures and languages.

But no matter if foreigner or not -when joining a new company new technical terminology and group jargon have to be learned in order to keep up the acquired norms for interaction. This is an important issue when wanting to become an accepted colleague.

Therefore this essay deals with language describing important patterns of interactions which are commonplace in the world of work. The central focus lies on the description of the different kinds of speech acts and their functions. This also involves analysing certain social relations, cultural or gender differences and variations between workplaces which influence the interactions.

The essay is based upon a research about intercultural workplace communication in Australia that was published in “Inter-cultural Communication at Work“, written by M. Clyne. The thereby collected data includes 88 complains with 54 whinges, 133 directives, 73 commissives, 25 apologies and 29 small-talks.

2. The Interactions

Clyne divides the interactions up into simple interaction sequences, complex interaction sequences and simple interaction sequences within complex ones.

Simple interaction sequences usually involve a single speech act and a response to it in the possible form of an adjacency pair. In addition to that they can be followed by lead-ups, repetitions or paraphrases. (Clyne, 1994, page 48)

Complex interaction sequences are comprised realizations of several connected and interdependent speech acts and they are generally less automatic and routinized. That’s why they can be ambiguous and multi-functional.

Furthermore there are simple interaction sequences within complex ones. A new sequence usually occurs when there is a change in the communicative setting e.g. in the interlocutors i.e. at least one person leaves or enters the interaction or becomes passive. (Clyne, 1994, page 48-49)

2.1 Complains and whinges

If humans are disappointed or grieve they tend to show it by exercitive complaints (exercising power) or so-called whinges (behabitive complaints).

The word whinges comes from Australian- English and stands for a long or repeated expression of discontent. Whinges can be realized through repetition, echo or parallel discourse and usually it’s not their intent to change or improve an unsatisfactory situation but to provide an outlet for emotions and establish or maintain solidarity. Due to this whinges can be found especially in workplace situations between equals and near-equals. As it is seen in table 3.1.4 this speech act mainly occurs when a small number of people work together. The minimal social distance between the co-workers allows enough time to scope for this kind of commend. Conferring the different cultures with each other it’s obvious that all nations whinge in some way or the other (c.f. table 3.1.3). (Clyne, 1994, page 62)

(1) Worker A: Oh, we have to work so long…it’s much too long.

Worker B: Yah, much too long…and now it’s not even 4.

Worker A: So stupid this work and still we have to stay.

Worker B: So annoying this work. I wanna go…why do we always have o work that long?

Although whinges are not directed towards achieving any particular goal and therefore don’t need any justifications they can lead to an exercitive complaint. (Clyne, 1994, page 50)

Those are goal-driven exercises of power that are often part of a complex sequence that include other speech acts like apologies, directives or commissives.

There can be complaints to or about another person but no matter what kind of complaint we are dealing with they always contain at least one request for action also called directive. Accusations that are toned through apparent disclaimer, modal, explanation or justification or implicit directives form the central part of a complaint. In addition to that they can be explicit or implicit. (Clyne, 1994, page 53)

An example for an explicit accusation is following sentence:

(2) Superior: You worked too slow today. You have to speed up if we want to finish in time.

On the opposite implicit complaints contain a more hidden message:

(3) Worker: It’s much too hot in here. The damn van is broken. Seriously, it needs to be fixed by someone. (Meaning: Fix it)

Nevertheless both the exercitive complaints and the whinges can use the same words in an utterance. The only distinction rests with the interlocutors and the speech situation. (Clyne, 1994, page 50)

2.2 Directives

Directives embody the effort of the speaker to direct the listener towards a special goal. Being used in order to change situations in accordance with own wishes they form part of a complaint sequence and are quite often to be found in work situations. (Mey, 2001, page 120) Although the dictionary shortly describes directives as ‘official instructions’ there is much more to say about this speech act than that. (Crowther, 1995, page 312) Giving directives is usually not as straightforward as it might seem. There are many different strategies used by people that range from giving suggestions to giving requests, instructions, orders or commands. One can differentiate between positive (do something) and negative (do not something) directives. When the message of the directive is directly expressed “Tomorrow bring the picture” it’s called explicit but where the message is expressed indirectly as in the following example the directive is an implicit one. (Clyne, 1994, page 63)

(4) Worker: Your fax is here (Meaning: Go and pick it up)

Other strategies to soften the impact and strength of the directives are: Using the pronoun we instead of you (c.f. example 5), using hedged structures (c.f. example 6) and using modals (c.f. example 7). The Use of justification, explanation or other forms of politeness is also a way in which the interactant allows the other some face. (Clyne, 1994, page 65)

(5) Worker: We just have to tell him exactly where to find it rather than you just have to tell him exactly where to find it.

(6) Worker: I wondered if you wouldn't mind spending some of that time in writing down the names of the people that are interested in the upcoming interview.

(7) Worker: You can do it later. We don’t have that much time to lose now.

Directives try people to co-operate through language by routines and markers. That’s why the type of this speech acts depends on a number of factors and particular occasions. An important feature of directives is to gain and maintain power. Due to this the power relationship between the participants is one of those factors a directive relays on. When giving a directive to an equal, workers tend to use more indirect devices. Nevertheless when talking to a subordinate, people are often more direct. Workers are addressed to in a more polite way when they are new or not well known. On the opposite people tend to use more directives when talking to someone they get along well with. This speech act is often used in urgent situation when there is no time for longer discussion. But dealing with a difficult task requires the requester to use more implicit directives. If the person that gives the directive has both the authority and the information to do so the speech act usually won’t require a response other than backchanneling. (www.vuw.ac.nz )

According to the research about intercultural workplace communication in Australia directives are performed especially by men from Europe and Latin America (c.f. Table 3.2.2) (Clyne, 1994, page 70)

2.3. Commissives

Commissives, as predicting ones own future behaviour by promising and offering, are a sub-class of predictives. Promising, Swearing, Guaranteeing or committing are just a few examples for this speech act. (Yule, 1996, page 54) Commissives can be positive or negative and either imposed or voluntary. This means committing yourself to do or not to do something and commit voluntary or imposed. Offers for example are self-initiated commissives. Jacob L. Mey writes about this speech act the following statement:

Like directives, commissives operate a change in the world by means of creating an obligation, however, this obligation is created in the speaker not in the hearer….”(Mey, 2001, page 120)

Commissives may include both conditional und unconditional promises as well as both simple spontaneous responses and the process and result of involved negotiation. Caused by the fact that commissives are usually simply responses to other speech acts e.g. to a directive or complaint they can be analysed in terms of adjacency pairs. (Clyne, 1994, page 71)

There are different kinds of categories that the commissives may fall into. An example (8) the active first person utterance in complete or nearly complete sentences can be found. If the speaker is reciting to him or herself what they are going to do, commissives can be self-directives at the same time. (Clyne, 1994, page 72)

(8) Worker: I will check. I will check that.

Furthermore commissives can be single word routines or assurances through formulaic expressions. This includes responses like mmm, yeah and no problems. Finally, this speech act can be implicit assurances in the form of complete or incomplete sentences. In addition to that a commissive can be simply a repetition of a directive as seen in example (9). Nevertheless commissives in complex sequences are often a part of complex exchange where the focus is on a directive or an apology or on other speech acts. (Clyne, 1994, page 73- 77)

(9) Worker A: Give it to him.

Worker B: Yah, give it to him.

Due to the fact that the use of the different commissives often depends on the culture and gender this speech act can cause much misunderstanding and cross-cultural prejudices. Women tend to use commissives far more often than men do and South-east Asian are the ones that predominate in using this speech act. (c.f. table 3.3.3)

Nevertheless it’s written in Clyne’s book “Inter-cultural Communication at Work” that the style of performing commissives does not only relay on cultural differences but also on power relationship in the workplace. Just like directives and complaints commissives may also be depended on individual and personal factors.

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